Mr Changsha wrote:It does seem to have a stabilized around 12300-12400.
I do have two questions for you expert 'scoreboard-worriers' though...
1. At what level would you consider the number to be so low that a CC-addict like me should start to worry?
2. At what level would you consider the number to be high enough to pronounce the site healthy?
I've answered this question (well, a
similar question) in this thread before. Rather than re-type the whole thing, I'll take the liberty of quoting myself.
Dukasaur wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:What's the optimal amount of CC users?
If we had 20 million over night, then you could see the problems with that. If we had 1000, then that would be problematic. So, is there an answer to my question?
When I joined there were about 23000 users, and most mod positions were filled without difficulty. When we dipped below 20K, we started seeing some mod positions being difficult to fill. I would like to see us at a point where not only are mod positions easy to fill, but we actually have a surplus of candidates for them and can pick and choose. I'd say 3 candidates per position would be a good point to be at, so something around 60K users. That's the Team perspective.
When I joined, people were filling 128 player tournaments on a fairly regular basis. At some point, I'm not sure exactly where, that started being difficult. I think we were around 17K or 16K users the first time that I saw an organiser forced to abandon a 128 player tourney because it couldn't fill. That was a relatively new organiser; at that point the more famous names could still fill one. Today, even the better TOs would have difficulty filling a tourney that size without heavy-duty spamming. It's not impossible, but difficult. I'd like to see us get to a point where even a middle-ground (not extremely famous, but not totally unknown) TO could fill a 256-player tourney. So, about double what it was when I joined, plus about 20%. So, about 55K. That's the Tournament perspective.
I'm sure cartographers and others could come up with similar benchmarks. For me, 55 to 60 K would be a good number.
I still stand by that. As far as I can see, we are way, way, way below the optimum point. In order for those things that should be happening to be happening, we need a lot more members. We have been in the danger zone for a long time. Many volunteer positions go unfilled, and others are filled with unqualified people because nobody better is available. Maps sit in the foundry for weeks at a time with no debate. Tournament organisers have to spam aggressively, sometimes even to fill little 32 player tournaments, never mind filling 128 player tourneys.
So at what point should you start to worry? You should never have stopped worrying, because we've never yet hit the point where this community would genuinely thrive.
As for what would be too much? Well, that's hard to say, but something about double the optimum point, about 120K, might start to get to feel more like a city than a village. When we get close to that I'll do a more detailed analysis.
